"I am young in years," I remarked. "But I have seen Life, Hannah."
Now I meant nothing by this at the time. But it was getting on my nerves
to be put in the infant class all the time. The Xmas before they had
done it, and I had had my revenge. Although it had hurt me more than it
hurt them, and if I gave them a fright I gave myself a worse one. As I
said at that time: Oh, what a tangeled web we weive,
When first we practice to decieve.
Sir Walter Scott.
Hannah gave me a horrafied Glare, and dipped into the Suitcase again.
She brought up a tin box of Cigarettes, and I thought she was going to
have delerium tremens at once.
Well, at first I thought the girls at school had played a Trick on me,
and a low down mean Trick at that. There are always those who think it
is funny to do that sort of thing, but they are the first to squeel when
anything is done to them. Once I put a small garter Snake in a girl's
muff, and it went up her sleave, which is nothing to some of the things
she had done to me. And you would have thought the School was on fire.
Anyhow, I said to myself that some Smarty was trying to get me into
trouble, and Hannah would run to the Familey, and they'd never beleive
me. All at once I saw all my cherished plans for the summer gone, and
me in the Country somewhere with Mademoiselle, and walking through the
pasture with a botany in one hand and a folding Cup in the other, in
case we found a spring a cow had not stepped in. Mademoiselle was
once my Governess, but has retired to private life, except in cases of
emergency.
I am naturaly very quick in mind. The Archibalds are all like that, and
when once we decide on a Course we stick to it through thick and
thin. But we do not lie. It is rediculous for Hannah to say I said the
cigarettes were mine. All I said was: "I suppose you are going to tell the Familey. You'd better run, or
you'll burst."
"Oh, Miss Barbara, Miss Barbara!" she said. "And you so young to be so
wild!"
This was unjust, and I am one to resent injustice. I had returned home
with my mind fixed on serious Things, and now I was being told I was
wild.
"If I tell your mother she'll have a fit," Hannah said, evadently drawn
hither and thither by emotion. "Now see here, Miss Bab, you've just
come Home, and there was trouble at your last vacation that I'm like to
remember to my dieing day. You tell me how those things got there, like
a good girl, and I'll say nothing about them."